


Losing My Cool

by lei_che_sogna



Series: Losing My Cool [1]
Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Episode 38 CHICKEN, Episode 39 Fish In The Sea, Episode Tag, Eventual Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Peter Donaldson, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:03:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lei_che_sogna/pseuds/lei_che_sogna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon AU post-"CHICKEN" in which Peter is hit with the clue-by-four he so desperately needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing My Cool

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote almost all of this on Tuesday and wasn't gonna post it, but after "Fish In The Sea" I thought someone else might need a happy ending as much as I do. 
> 
> The title is from Mike Clark & The Sugar Sounds' ["Losing My Cool"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L74EvIwkp0).
> 
> ETA 12/10: Easter Egg alert! The asterisk at the scene break is now a link that will take you to an explicit scene I'd originally cut from this fic. Click for smut, don't click and keep your virtue intact.

Peter has to be careful not to slam his bedroom door behind him. Looking like he was fleeing for his life was bad enough, but at least he had the excuse of taking a very important call. If he slams the door now, everyone else might twig to the fact he hasn’t answered the phone at all because he’s too busy having a meltdown.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself lately. His mouth makes words, but not the ones he wants to say. Like he’s constantly forgetting the lines he’s supposed to be saying, like he never got a copy of the script everyone else seems to have memorised. More and more he feels like he’s playing a role, the character of Peter, the out and proud bisexual who’s got the starring role in _Doctor Faustus_ and has loads of friends and eats tapas with beautiful people and might make mistakes but not ones that matter.

 _“I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I knew it made you happy,”_ Balth says in his memory. Peter winces and scrubs at his face with his free hand.

So maybe he’d been losing touch for a little while. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the flat bonding thing really did work. Up until today, when he had to try not to kiss his best friend. He starts pacing. He has to move. If he doesn’t hold on to his phone, his hair, something—

It had stopped being a joke early on. Balthy’s smile receded like it’d been wiped clean off his face, and when it returned, it was fake. It didn’t get anywhere near his eyes, serious and solemn. Those eyes had pinned him in place, trapped centre stage and lit up with Klieg lights, no way to hide.

There isn’t anything to hide. What you see is what you get with him. That’s who Peter is.

His phone rings again, and he startles, dropping it on the floor. He didn’t see who it was. Costa probably. It’s always Costa.

He keeps moving, from the desk to the bed and back again, over and over. If he answers the call he’s going to collapse back into the guy he’s pretending to be. He wants to be someone else, not Peter, not all-around great guy Pedro. He could just be himself if he knew who the hell that was.

He turns again to pace back and catches himself looking at the door. There could be someone on the other side right now, wondering whether to knock. He shakes his head in disgust. He’s more than isolated himself. He could open the door, go back out there, do the whole happy flatmates routine. Say he wasn’t ready, apologise, ask for a do-over—No. He’s not strong enough for that. And he’s definitely not that good an actor.

What if Balth’s just sitting on the sofa right now, laughing with Ben and Fred because it was just a silly stupid game? What if he isn’t? What if he’s in his own room, doing exactly the same as Peter?

And if he did go out and see Balth’s door was closed and knocked on it—

See, Balth’s been a part of his life for so long that he would’ve said that they didn’t have any boundaries. But since the thing with Hero—and now the flat—he’s come to realise that there may be rather a lot of boundaries between them. The way that Balthy’s lips get thin, like he’s holding back from saying certain things. The way he looks sometimes, soft-eyed, and how he’d tilted his head and leaned in—

Peter has nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

If he did go into Balth’s room, he’d end up shattering all those boundaries. Any honest attempt to talk about what just happened would have repercussions. After that, they might not talk any more. They’d avoid each other. One of them would move out.

His skin is too tight, it can’t contain him, the room is wrapping itself closer around him, he can’t breathe fast enough to get air in his lungs, he’s pacing faster, throwing himself against the sides of his cage—

Forget the door. He can’t—he shouldn’t—Balth—

The window is there, and his jacket is in his hand, and it’s nothing he hasn’t done before. He slides the window up and is out and around the side of the house on careful feet before he has to even think twice.

He’s halfway down the hill before he remembers his phone, still on the floor in his room. He takes a moment to swear and kick a stone off the side of the pavement. Ladies and Gentlemen, your Prince of Fuck-Ups, Peter Donaldson.

The fresh air on his face feels somehow raw, reaching a part of him that’s laid bare. But his sunglasses are in his jacket pocket, and his wallet’s in his trousers. He unfolds the sunnies, put them on, and walks.

The rest of the way down the hill he breathes as deep as he can, holding each breath until his lungs strain for release. The sun is shining warm on the top of his head. There are even birds singing. It’s really fucking great.

He could hit up Jacquie for some drinks since she’s on shift, or he could go back and sort things out.

Or he could keep walking.

 

Hours later, his sunglasses are back in his pocket. He’s not in any danger of being blinded by streetlamps. His feet hurt, the sun is long gone, and he’s tired enough to pretend he feels better. Or tired enough not to care that he doesn’t. He might as well head back.

Fucking flat challenges. Whose brilliant idea was it for them to play a stupid kid’s game in the first place?

He stops dead in the middle of the pavement. Whose idea _was_ it?

Ben had barely been able to read the note. He was one of those guys who sometimes had trouble reading his own handwriting, but it was really obvious when he lied, so he hadn’t written it. Freddie didn’t even know what Chicken was. And unless he’d had a lobotomy he didn’t remember having, Peter himself hadn’t done it.

That left Balth.

From all the times they’ve studied together he knows Balthy’s handwriting as well as his own, but he couldn’t see the paper because Ben had it tilted away from him. The video must be up by now. If he had his phone, he could study it, try to watch everyone’s reactions. Balth gets all tense and doesn’t move his hands when he lies. Had Balth been acting differently? Peter had been too distracted by Freddie throwing herself on the floor to notice.

If Balth had suggested Chicken, why? There are plenty of other fun games with more potential for embarrassment. The only real reason to play Chicken is to kiss someone who’d never kiss you normally, and there isn’t anyone in the flat Balth would—

It's crazy. The only thing more ridiculous than the idea that Balthazar wants to kiss him is how very much he wants it to be true.

Maybe he’s having an aneurysm. Maybe it’s nothing more than wishful thinking. But if there's even the smallest chance it might be true, then he has to know.

 

The house is mostly dark, the TV’s flickering glow visible through the window. He skirts round the back, ducking under Freddie’s and Ben’s windows just to be safe. If Balth’s watching telly with the others just like normal—

The window closest to him is open, and Peter sends a quick prayer of thanks to whoever watches out for colossal fuck-ups as he braces his hands on the sill. The lights are off, but the ambient light from outside stops it from being pitch black. He squints into the room, frowning.

A pale face jerks up from the bed. He’s never seen Balthy like this and he never wants to again. Balthazar is hunched almost in half, arms wrapped around his knees. There’s an open notebook in the middle of the floor, weird for someone as tidy as Balth, and his guitar is lying abandoned on the corner of the bed, just out of his reach.

He’s very clearly not okay, and if Peter had anything at all to do with this there won’t be enough apologies in the universe for him to make.

 “You’re not watching telly with the others, then?” Peter tries, when the silence starts to get too long.

Balth shakes his head once. “No, I thought I’d sit here in the dark.”

Peter nods like this makes perfect sense. “So, can I…” he waves an arm in the general direction of ‘inside’.

Balth scrubs at his face with the pulled-down cuffs of his jumper. Then he starts to move, and Peter can feel his heart coming up his throat before it’s clear that Balth is heading not for him, but for the door. He slaps on the light with more force than he usually uses for anything, and Peter blinks in the dazzling glow.

“Get in here, then,” Balth says, and Peter obliges. This is awkward in a way it’s never been with Balth before.

“Why did you want to kiss me?” Fuck, Pete. No. Why the hell did he say that first? He was going to be subtle, work up to it.

Balth licks his lips, and it’d take more strength than Peter has to stop himself from following that tongue with his eyes.

“You sure you wanna have this conversation?” Balth asks, quirking his eyebrows. He’s backed into the corner, as far away from Peter as he can get without actually plastering himself to the wall.

“Yes.”

“What if it changes everything?”

Peter laughs, a short sharp noise that cuts at his throat. “Look at us now. I’d say we’re already there.”

Balth nods, but says nothing. They’re standing in the ruins of years of friendship, all crumbled round their feet. Peter doesn’t feel like he can take another step. It’s all he can do to raise his eyebrows at Balth, encouraging him to continue.

“I would tell you in a song, but that hasn’t worked for me so far.” he breathes, pulse fluttering in the hollow of his throat like a hummingbird. “So I’ll just say it, no lyrics. I love you.”

He can’t be serious. Why—

 “No,” he says, and Balth stumbles back into the wall, almost hard enough to hit his head. “No, that’s just that song you wrote as a joke, and Ben thought it was hilarious to keep it going because I never got it together enough to ask you out properly. It’s not...” _Real._

He doesn’t have to finish, with Balth it’s just as good as actually saying it.

“Great, well, thanks for clearing that up. It’s not like I’ve spent half my life in love with you or anything.”

Leaving aside that he hadn’t even realised his best friend liked him romantically, “That’s cruel. For them to do that to you.”

“They thought you needed some help.”

“I did. I hadn’t. Noticed, I,” he hisses out a breath. “I thought it was all me.”

“You what?” Balth’s eyes are so wide that Peter is tipping over, falling in, gone.

“The thing with Hero,” Balth puts up a hand to stop him, but he has to get this out. “No, wait. I cut ties with all my friends, everyone who didn’t agree with me for saying horrible things about her. And it didn’t matter, because I didn’t really miss them. Me, fucking Student Leader, not caring if I was ostracised. I didn’t care about any of them. Just you. We didn’t talk, not even in class, and then I saw you at the vigil, and it was—“ He has to stop for breath, not to gather his thoughts. He’s been keeping this in for too long. He can’t think anymore. All he can do is keep going.

“You were too good to get caught up in it. And I’d just tried to destroy Hero’s life. Sure, we were friends again after that, everything pretty much went back to normal, but I hadn’t known until then. How I felt. About you. Even with all the excuses I made to touch you, all the study sessions, all the times I harassed you about your crush, because there was no way that person was—”

“You,” there, the barest hint of a whisper of a smile on Balth’s lips, and Peter just now realises he’s been staring at them this entire time. It might be funny, except this is Balth and this is his life that Peter’s made into a tragedy. He had no idea. Like his actions hadn’t been affecting anybody else, right.

“When you got back together with Damien, I figured that was it. But, the songs,” he says, and Balth’s head jerks up. “They were about me?”

“Yes,” he says, eyes rising to fix on Peter.

He has to look away, this is too big. Too much.

“But I’m…” he starts, tries again. “I’m not…” _Worth it. Any of it._

A hand settles on his arm, and Peter does his best not to jump straight (hah, no) up in the air.

“You are,” Balth says, and he just—how can he look like that? At him?

He’s been there, constant, for years.

“ _An Ode_ , you…”

“Meant it, yeah,” and this is where Balth would be blushing and looking down at his hands, but he’s braver than that. Braver than Peter ever will be.

“ _Running Mad_?”

“You. I’m actually working on another one, if you want to see,” Balth says, gesturing at the notebook on the floor.

“Yeah, sure,” Peter says without thinking. Balth’s songs are genius. He always wants to see them. Balth freezes, wanting to take back his offer, but then he shrugs and lifts the notebook off the floor like picking up a dead rat. He presses it into Peter’s hands.

Peter really should not have asked. The song is called ‘Fish In The Sea,’ and it is about being rejected by the only person you’ll ever love. It is just as heartbreaking as it is incomprehensible that someone—that _Balthazar_ —feels this deeply about him. He clears his throat, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.

Even through the tears he can see it all unfolding in front of him like the goddamn map of Middle Earth, an epic accounting of his mistakes written in fancy script with a little picture next to each. All the times he treated Balth like shit. Every time he brought someone home and fucked them loudly in his room. It’d never mattered before, because, if you can’t have what you want, why would you even try? He groans, sinking down to the floor. The notebook he places carefully on the floor so he can clutch at his scalp.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He’s said those two words so much over the past year, and he knows how little comfort they are. He’s never meant them more than he does now. Balth’s hand settles in his hair, a reassurance he doesn’t deserve. He sniffles, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You can do so much better,” he offers.

Balthazar kneels in front of him. “Didn’t you hear? You’re the only fish in the sea.” He mops at Peter’s eyes with his sleeve. “ _For me_ ,” he sings softly.

“Kit,” Peter tries, a last-ditch effort to save Balth rather than himself. He’s gone, Peter’s been gone since he looked into Balth’s eyes during that game of Chicken. He’s going to live or die by what Balthazar does in the next thirty seconds.

“He’s a cool guy. And a friend,” Balth finishes. Peter’s heart evens out from the nosedive it’d been plunging into.

Balth’s holding back a smile, but it spills out joy from his eyes, from the corners of his mouth. “Your face. I don’t know what you’d hate more, if I said I liked him or if I said I didn’t.”

Peter inhales. His hand is shaking as he traces it along the rise of Balth’s cheekbone. Balth leans into his hand, sliding into place like he’s always been there and always will.

“You know the answer to that,” Peter manages to get out.

He’s not a poet, but if he was, he still wouldn’t be able to write anything close to describing the glory of Balthazar’s smile right now.

~~[*](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4987672%22)~~

 

Peter groans the universal plea of the sleep deprived. It’s too fucking bright. It’s never this bright in his room. Because he’s not in his room, he remembers as he opens his eyes. He’s in Balthazar’s room. And they’d forgotten to close the curtains last night.

“Good morning,” Balth says. What a change a day makes. Yesterday he couldn’t handle it, but today there’s nothing Peter would rather do than look at Balth. Well, almost nothing.

“Hi,” he says stupidly. He may be smiling a lot. Balthy’s hair is flat and even softer than it looks. “I like the spikes, but this is a good look for you,” he says, nodding. What the hell is he saying?

“Yeah?” Balth asks, rolling his eyes up like he can see his own hair if he tries hard enough. Peter is so far gone he’s not even horrified at how cute he finds this. “I could leave it like this sometimes, if you like it that much.”

“No, I don’t… want anyone else to see it. If that’s okay with you,” he adds quickly.

Balth turns away and buries his head in the pillow. He’s shaking from head to toe, laughing so hard he’s almost inhaling the pillow.

“Balthy?”

Balth rolls closer to elbow him in the stomach. “You’re ridiculous, mate.”

“What can I say? That’s the kind of boyfriend I am.” He makes it as casual as he can, but he might have forgotten how to do that at some point last night. The new, improved Peter Donaldson, now with Zero Chill!

Balth does stop laughing at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Oh thank fuck that’s over with, now he never has to have this conversation ever again. He slides on top of Balth, pushing him back into the pillow. Balth wraps his hands round Peter’s shoulders, deft fingers beginning to trace a route downwards. It’s about to go from a good morning to a spectacular one when there’s a knock on the door, followed by a creak.

“Stanley?” Freddie whispers hesitantly. “I made you some tea. Don’t get up, I’m just going to put it over—“ She shrieks. Peter looks around just in time to see the red-and-white-striped mug hit the floor.

“Hey, Freds,” Balthy says, which is so not the thing to say when your flatmate barges in your room. Peter sits up, keeping Balth behind him. He hoists the blankets up so all the important bits are covered.

“You’re supposed to wait after knocking,” he says.

“ _You’re_ supposed to… not sleep with Stanley! What are you doing? Peter, are you drunk? Stanley, are you?” She points accusingly at them. “What about rule five?”

She couldn’t have set that up any better if they’d been rehearsing it for weeks.

“Fuck the rules,” he and Balth say in unison.

“Freds, can you keep it down?” Wonderful, and here’s Ben. “It’s not even eEYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.” Ben is wearing his dressing gown below a truly gobsmacked expression which is rapidly morphing into a huge grin. Not that he’d thought about it, but if he had, Peter’d imagined telling Ben and Freddie at dinner. He’d hold Balth’s hand under the table. They’d be wearing all their clothes. He wouldn’t be essentially sitting in Balth’s lap.

“AAAAHHHHHOh my God Beatrice!” Ben disappears from the doorway. There’s the thundering of running feet, followed by a crash, and he reappears with the camera in one hand and his laptop in the other. The laptop is angled away from him but Peter can just about see a very disheveled Beatrice in a Skype box on the screen.

“Ben, don’t you dare turn on that camera,” he warns. He did agree to the incessant filming, but a fuckload of Internet people are not seeing this.

“Pete! Sssh shush shush! I’m not filming you, what do you take me for? Don’t answer that. Bea, I’m sorry and I love you and I promise I’ll explain if you just watch this for the next five minutes.”

Ben jams at the Power button with his chin, squints at it to make sure it’s on, and points the camera at himself. “On this day of 7th October in this anno of Our Lord Marlowe two thousand and fifteen, let it be known that we have risen against the oppressive shackles of our dictator Freddie Kingston and put an end to the wholly inappropriate and, frankly, idiotic Rule Number Five, the dreaded No Shenanigans rule.”

 “Hear, hear,” Balth says.

“It was _your rule_ , Ben,” Peter mutters, echoed by the sound of Beatrice’s voice sweetly asking, “And who suggested it in the first place, darling dickface?”

Ben is already hurtling back out the door. There’s a pause, a loud ripping noise, and Ben comes back to throw the Flat Rules at Fred. Number Five has been struck out with blue Sharpie. Ben turns the camera on Freddie, careful to avoid getting Peter, Balth, or Balth’s bed in the shot.

“What?”

“Sorry, Freds, majority rule. Love wins.”

Ben stares at Freddie. Freddie stares back. There’s a long silence.

“I’m… okay with that?” Freddie says hesitantly.

“What?” He would cross his arms if he wasn’t using them to hold up the blankets. As it is he glares at Freddie. He spent a lot of months wearing black leather and brooding. His glare is practically a physical entity by now. It turns out every single person in this flat is emotionally stunted and bad at communication, God help them all. It’s surprising that things have turned out this well.

“I might be… dating… Kit?” At least she has the decency to look guilty.

“AAAH HA! Two sushis!” Ben crows, not unlike Ursula’s year tens. “I was right! Nobody eats that much sushi on their own!”

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Peter groans. Maybe his life isn’t a Greek tragedy, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be in a farce. He turns to face Balth, raising an eyebrow at him. There’s no way Balthy didn’t know.

Balth smiles sheepishly at him. “I wanted it to work out for someone.”

That’s just... How could he still have had so much faith in love, even after everything Peter had done?

“I love you,” Peter says. Balth’s hand is shaking as it runs through his hair, and he’s looking at Peter like he’s done everything right.

“My work here is done,” Ben says from somewhere far away. “All’s well that ends well! We’ll just leave you two alone now. See you later! A lot later! Maybe even tomorrow.” He herds Freddie out of the room. The door slams behind them.

“You should lock that!” Freddie shouts.

“You should wait after knocking!” Peter shouts back.

Balthy’s laughing again, pressing his forehead into Peter’s shoulder. Outside the windows, Wellington’s hills are sprawled out under the strengthening sun. Peter turns his back on them. Wellington can wait. He has everything he wants right here.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~this was supposed to be a drabble why can't I write anything that's less than 1,000 words you guys why and also sorry for that RIDICULOUS FLOOF at the end there~~  
>  This was Jossed in-episode, as Benji says they all ate pizza together that night. I've quoted Balthy in "TOWN," and there are references to "Fish In The Sea." Peter is slightly OOC since he's less oblivious here than in canon. I'm pretty sure you can't climb in through Balthy's windows but I took some creative licence. Oh, and this is unbetaed so please tell me if you see any errors.
> 
>  ~~#True Confession: I did write a fairly explicit sex scene for this but the LLL fandom seems to skew pretty young so I left it out. If any of you Losers do want to read it, just ask and I'll throw it up here.~~ Ohmygawd you guys I posted the sex thank you for your encouragement!
> 
> I'm [farthestfrom](http://farthestfrom.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi!


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